Rob-n-Hild Take the High Road!

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Isle of Islay 104.3 km in 2:37 hours (slow - for sheepies and pictures). Only 103 metre max elevation.

The rain and wind stopped overnight and when we woke up the weather was beautiful. Perfect morning at Port Mor campsite - breakfast cooked by camping stove was so yummy and peaceful - with a nice view of the sea.

We had decided to do some driving around Islay before our Bowmore guided tour. One of our first encounters were with some cute donkeys - one of which was tryig to reach an itch.

At the southernmost tip of the island we parked Percy and went for a walk around Port Wemyss and Portnahaven. This was the sunny view over to the isle of Orsay. This included a very lazy seal perched on a rock sunning itself.

We struck gold by finding a food truck for Orsay Seafood in the village. We enjoyed lobster roll, crab roll, and crabbie chips - of course with each our can of "Irn Bru". The owner of the business prepared our food. Her husband is a fisherman and supplies the food truck. In fact his boat was anchored just down from where we were enjoying our meal. That is possibly the most local food we have had.

The beautiful town of Portnahaven.

The return look around the southern part of Islay brought us through another very narrow road. There were few cars - thankfully due to very few passing places - and many sheep and even horses.

Next, what Rob had been looking forward to for a while: Our guided tour at Bowmore Distillery. We got to walk through and learn about the process that produces Rob's favourite single malt scotch whisky. He even got to try turning the malt on one of their drying floors.

The photos of the kiln were no good, but that is where they use peat cut from the surrounding bogs to get the famous smokey flavour.

We walked from building to building to see the various processes. The dried and smoked malt is milled - first rollers crack open the grain and the second grinds it to grist. We also saw the grist bins, water tanks, mash tanks, giant tanks for fermenting, and beautiful stills.

We learnt that we have been mis-pronouncing "Bowmore" until now. In fact, the emphasis should be on "more". We have also mis-pronounced "Islay" by including the "y" when one should call it "Isla".

...and finally oak casks. This is where we got to taste the end result. We tasted a 12-year-old spirit matured in a bourbon cask and one 18-year-old spirit matured in a sherry cask. The final whisky is often a blend of these two. Later we had a third glass of a 15-year-old bottled spirit.

Hild settled for sniffing hers and the guide gave her bottles to take hers home. They treat designated drivers well, and we got to keep the glasses.

In the gift shop we determined that a 1971 Bowmore vintage is worth Ł34,110.00. Hild is also 1971 vintage, but probabaly not worth that much!

Rob secured a bottle of his favourite whisky - also called "water of life" or "Uisge-beatha" in Gaelic. We will research who coined the phrase first since Aquavit is also the "water of life".

After the Bowmore tour we did a drive-by of many of the other famouse distilleries. Bruichladdich - with a shout-out to Mauricio since this is his favourite.

Then there was Ardbeg with a shiny still on their front lawn.

Then there was Lagavulin - owned by Diageo - so we give a shout-out to Dave and Patti whose son, Greg, used to work for Diageo.

Then there was Laphroaig who has the same owner as Bowmore: Suntory.

We didn't see many fields of barley but at least we found one. Bowmore buys their barley from the mainland to get the best and consistent quality.

Bowmore has an interesting round church which caught our eye.

In Bowmore there is a pizzaria called "Peatzeria" with a very nice logo showing a pizza slice cut out of the Isle of Islay. Nice!

Across the road from the Peatzeria is a local butcher that advertises that they have fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week. That is life on an island with limited supplies from the mainland.

Coming up: Isle of Islay to Glasgow

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